Machine Vendetta by Alastair Reynolds
(Gollancz, 2024)
Reviewed by Ben Jeapes
This is the third in a trilogy of the Prefect Dreyfus Emergencies, which began with The Prefect (2007), followed by Elysium Rising (2018). We are in the Revelation Space universe and specifically in the Glitter Band: a belle epoque high point of civilisation, 10,000 habitats and 100 million lives in the orbit of Yellowstone under the ruthlessly benevolent eye of the Panoply organisation.
While each book has all the hallmarks of a normal police procedural, the implications are usually threatening to civilization. Panoply polices the machinery of democracy with, if necessary, lethal force, ensuring no one in the Glitter Band is denied the democratic rights guaranteed them under a set of Common Articles. Everyone is at perfect liberty not to exploit their rights, but Panoply makes sure those rights are there to be exploited if they desire. Any other human rights are fair game: the logic is that if someone chooses to be oppressed it is their choice, as long as they are not being coerced.
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Review from BSFA Review 24 - Download your copy here.
High Vaultage by Chris and Jen Sugden
Reviewed by Kate Onyett
This may be alt-history Victoriana, but this is not your mother’s steam-punk. Self-described as ‘Tesla-punk’ by the authors, this version of Victorian London is not coal-fired, but thrums with wireless electricity (no, really, Tesla actually did experiment with wi-fi power). London, now called Even Greater London (EGL), covers the entire southern half of Britain, ending somewhere roughly in the midlands with a thick barrier-forest well stocked with wolves to keep the civilised locked in.
Freakslaw by Jane Flett
(Doubleday, 2024)
Reviewed by Allen Stroud
Freakslaw by Jane Flett is an interesting novel. In 1997, the carnival comes to the Scottish town of Pitlaw, disrupting the italic boredom of the residents, providing a source of intriguing excitement for younger characters like Ruth MacNamara. The travellers are exotic, strange and confrontational. There is a magic about them that manifests in moments of danger, there is a sense they are not limited by the everyday concerns of the locals.
Flett’s writing navigates a careful line. The magical exotic nature of the carnival never strays into endorsing prejudice. However, her story does reveal it and describe it as the two communities interact with one another. There is a clear connection between this story and Ray Bradbury’s, Something Wicked this Way Comes. The subject material is similar, although Flett’s work is set in an English town, rather than rural America.
Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis
(Hodderscape, 2024)
Reviewed by Steven French
If you liked Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, or ‘cosy’, character-focussed SF in general, then you’ll most likely enjoy this too. In a galaxy-spanning empire that enforces a rigid social hierarchy and chews up planets for their resources, together with their inhabitants, The Grand Abeona Hotel offers a measure of respite as it sails majestically from one star system to the next. (Appropriately enough, ‘Abeona’ was the Roman goddess of departures.) The staff are led by Carl, himself a former refugee, taken under the wing of the original owner and manager, Nina, before rising through the ranks. Remaining unflappable throughout, it is Carl who ensures that everything runs as it should, while the hotel itself slowly and gracefully runs to seed. His duty of care embraces both guests and staff and even the tough and battle-scarred, like Dunk, the sous-chef, or the sharp and sarky, like Rogan, the life-guard, turn out to have hearts, if not of gold, then at least of something noble-metal adjacent. Indeed, one of the pleasures of the book are the glimpses into their past lives, as each chapter presents their distinct points-of-view.
Charming by Jade Linwood
(Rebellion, 2023)
Reviewed by Dev Agarwal
Charming declares its raison d’etre on its opening page. Author Jade Linwood offers her book, “To all those princesses who realised that they could rescue themselves.”
With that dedication in mind, Linwood takes on the task of re-fashioning well-known (and arguably well-worn) fairy tales that most of us grew up with. Fairy tales have been adapted to visual pantomime, which over time, has re-worked the source material to conform to audience expectations of slapstick, in-jokes and innuendo. The enduring popularity of both fairy tales and pantomime reflects their ongoing appeal, and neither forms should be condemned when measured on their own merits. They are designed with humour and family entertainment in mind. However, the issue for twenty-first century fantasy readers is whether there is anything new that a writer can do with these ingredients.
Transparent Minds in Science Fiction: An Introduction to Alien, AI and Post-Human Consciousness by Paul Matthews
(OpenBook Publishers, 2023)
Almost fifty years ago, the philosopher Thomas Nagel posed the question “What is it like to be a bat?” as a way of illuminating the ineluctably subjective nature of consciousness. Noting that Nagel himself acknowledged that imagination offers a way of approaching the issue (p. 8), Matthews displays an impressive array of examples throughout this introductory survey to support his core claim that,
‘…science fiction with a psycho-emotional flavour can provide new insight into both current human consciousness and also possible future states of consciousness in both ourselves and the machines we create.’ (p. 2)
Review from BSFA Review 23 - Download your copy here.
The Book of Beasts by Andrew Screen
(Headpress, 2023)
Reviewed by Stuart Carter
I was born during the 1970s, when Nigel Kneale’s Beasts was on TV, but this was long before I knew who he was. However, I became a fan of his work from a young age after seeing the Quatermass films repeated in various BBC2 science fiction seasons (usually, I seem to recall, around six o‘clock on a weekday).These seasons were mostly composed of Cold War-era US movies, so these films stood out because, well, they weren’t American; but also because they had a middle-aged scientist as the hero, and managed to be subtle yet exciting, in a way that my ten-year-old self—somewhat to his own surprise—loved.
Writing the Future: Essays on Crafting Science Fiction edited by Dan Coxon and Richard V. Hirst
(Dead Ink, 2023)
Reviewed by Nick Hubble
I work as an academic within what is now called a Division of English and Creative Writing, which began life illegitimately (just ask ‘Quality Assurance’ about the provenance of the paperwork and the insufficiently distinct ‘learning outcomes’) and has gradually transformed into a marriage of convenience. Once sharp distinctions and hierarchies have blurred over the years as the balance of power (i.e., relative student recruitment rates) has shifted and changes to the way universities are managed in recent years mean that virtually no one outside the Division has a clue what any of us do or that there ever was a binary divide between us. We all write stuff and do research that other academics don’t consider to be real research. As a result, we and all our equivalents across the UK HE sector melted together into a primordial gloop some years ago and strange new hybridised creative-critical forms have been lumbering forth, monster-like, ever since. Writing the Future is part of a growing body of evidence that this new species is now fertile and populating in the wild.
Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground by Stu Horvath
(MIT Press, 2023)
Reviewed by Alex Bardy
Here’s a book that was always going to be ‘up my alley’, especially as it comprehensively covers the earliest generation of roleplaying games back when they really began to gain popularity and momentum here in the UK. This is what I’ve always considered ‘my RPG generation’, so to speak, and it’s a time in which magazines like White Dwarf, Imagine, Dragon, The Space Gamer, Different Worlds, Challenge, Travellers’ Digest, and untold fanzines flooded the market and helped inspire a generation of gamers and wordsmiths, myself included.
For those readers wondering just who Stu Horvath is, may I direct you to the www.vintagerpg.com website—it’s an extremely pleasant, tidy little corner of the internet in which Stu regularly talks about his massive collection of historic tabletop RPG goodies, alongside a thorough appreciation of classic comic/RPG art (mostly pre-millennial). It’s also the home of the Vintage RPG Podcast, a weekly podcast Stu hosts with John McGuire, and a great listen, too!
Mothtown by Caroline Hardaker
(Angry Robot, 2023)
Reviewed by Niall Harrison
It begins After. The narrator of Mothtown, David Porter, is “a human knot”, falling. He hits his head, lies in the earth awhile, then forces himself upwards. He is looking for “the two shadows”, but they seem to be hiding. He’s running, sliding, scrabbling down a craggy valley that is “coated in dead brown grass like hair on a giant”. The sky is “a dirty chalkboard”. It’s quiet. Michale had told him it hadn’t been that kind of town for thousands of years, but David is still amazed by its emptiness, “its naked hills burning beneath the stars.” And it shouldn’t have taken this long to reach the door. But perhaps—he hopes—he can still get there before the shadows catch him.
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